Creative Commons License

An estimated two-thirds of all Americans drink at least one cup of coffee a day, but the cost of it shot up in recent years and may continue to rise under high tariffs imposed by the U.S. on coffee-producing countries.

In 2020, the price of a pound of roasted ground coffee in U.S. cities averaged $4.43 according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But in 2024, prices averaged $6.32 per pound, and the most recent data from August 2025 shows prices hit $8.87 per pound.

Connecticut, like the rest of the nation, is seeing sharp increases in coffee prices. According to data collected by Toast, an operations platform that thousands of restaurants and food vendors across the country use, the price of a hot cup of coffee increased 7.7% in Connecticut from 2024 to 2025. Some states saw increases as high as 11%.

A variety of environmental and economic factors contributed to initial price increases, but tariffs imposed by the Trump administration could push prices even higher.

In July, President Donald Trump announced a 40% tariff on Brazil. However, a 10% tariff was already imposed in April on Brazil, along with many other coffee-producing countries, as a part of the administration’s “Liberation Day” tariff package.

While dozens of countries produce coffee, Brazil makes up 37% of all global coffee production. A report published in June by the USDA found that Brazil’s coffee production has fluctuated over the past five years due to drought and high temperatures, lowering crop yield. Vietnam, the second-largest coffee producer worldwide, also saw crop fluctuations due to drought and high temperatures.

“Vietnam is reduced 1.1 million bags to 29.0 million as drought conditions limited output,” reads the report.

Brazil is also down in production by 1.7 million bags from initial USDA estimates due to drought and high temperatures.

Initial rises in prices came from the shock the global supply chain felt during COVID, according to a release from the BLS.

Sasha is a data reporting fellow with The Connecticut Mirror. She graduated from the University of Maryland in May with a degree in journalism and a minor in creative writing. For the past year Sasha was working part time for the Herald-Mail, a newspaper based in Western Maryland. She was also a reporter and copy editor for Capital News Service, the university’s wire service where she covered the state legislature, the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, school board elections, youth mental health and climate change. Earlier in her college career, Sasha also interned at the Baltimore Magazine and wrote for numerous student publications including the Diamondback, the university’s independent, student-run newspaper.